The Five Biggest Problems With 'Game Of Thrones' Season 8, Episode 5 'The Bells'

Last night's episode of 'Game Of Thrones' wasn't terrible, but it made some big mistakes.

Credit: HBO

Last night's episode of Game Of Thrones brought us the Battle of King's Landing, though it was less a battle and more a slaughter.

In many ways, it was a terrific 80 minutes of television. The special effects were excellent, the score powerful, the acting as brilliant as ever. There were moments of horror that really showed what the smallfolk endure in times of war, which I loved.

The terror of a massive dragon burning King's Landing from above was palpable, and watching it unfold was intense and in some ways everything one hoped from Daenerys gone mad . . . almost at the toss of a coin. It was certainly a much better episode than last week's complete disaster, and certainly offered up the best cinematography this show has ever graced our television screens with.

And yet, as I noted in my review last night, the whole thing just felt so rushed that the big, critical story points seemed to come almost out of nowhere. That's where we'll start this post's list, actually, as it is the rush itself that is the biggest problem with Game of Thrones not just last night, but for the last two seasons.

1. The rush.

King's Landing burns

Credit: HBO

This would have been a near-perfect episode if we'd arrived here more organically. Imagine if Season 8 had been all about the Night King and the battle in the North. Bit by bit, the Night King would have taken over the lands in the North as winter deepened and the long night actually fell, blanketing not just the night in darkness, but the days also. And through all of this, Daenerys stood by the Starks and fought valiantly against the White Walkers.

The finale of Season 8 would have been the Battle of Winterfell (other smaller excursions and melees would have occurred, each more desperate than the last, as the season unfolded) with Arya killing the Night King and Jon Snow killing the undead Viserion. Meanwhile, in King's Landing we would watch as Cersei shored up her power, constructing her ballistae and gathering her armies. Maybe we get to know the Golden Company a little bit. Euron gets fleshed out a bit more, maybe even finds a certain Horn he can use to control dragons. And Cersei's belly grows as her womb quickens.

Then in Season 9, the armies begin to march south. Daenerys, fresh off the heels of her victory in the North, begins butting heads more and more with the Starks. Maybe the Dornish are brought back into play, and a rival alliance emerges. We get more game of thrones stuff as the march toward war with Cersei ensues. Maybe some smaller skirmishes between Lannister and Stark on the way to King's Landing. Maybe Euron uses the Horn to turn Rhaegal, or scratching the Horn idea, maybe he devises some clever ambush where he takes Dragonstone and dresses his men up as Dany's troops, then ambushes her and her retinue when they arrive, killing or capturing Rhaegal when he lands (as opposed to flying) and taking Missandei.

Tyrion Lannister

Credit: HBO

The point of all of this is to say that so much more could have happened along the way before we reached this huge climax. Daenerys has been changing for a long time now, but the show needed to make that process more organic, more developed and natural. Likewise, Jaime's arc has been so fully fleshed out that it makes literally no sense to have him change the way he did, but with less rush and more careful storytelling, it might have been brilliant. More on this in a bit, and read Paul Tassi's own take on the "betrayal" of both these character's in last night's episode.

Oh, and we could have had more instances of Daenerys burning people, for increasingly ruthless and petty reasons. Maybe start to show her enjoy the burning, give her a bit of her father's pyromania. The point being, if we'd had two seasons, or even just a few more (long) episodes, so much more of this story could have been fleshed out, and fewer shortcuts taken. I mean, if you think back to past seasons we've had entire ten episode arcs leading to the blowing up of the Sept or the Red Wedding, but in Season 8 we get the final showdown with the Night King and Cersei in just five episodes. It's . . . absurd, quite frankly.

2. Daenerys broke bad in the worst possible way.

I've been watching as Daenerys has slowly transformed into a villain for quite some time now. She's been ruthless and had a bad temper and always seems justified in every one of her actions, and has only been held in check by the good advice and sound counsel of Jorah, Missandei, Barristan Selmy and so forth. With her closest companions dead, Dany is unleashed. It was only a matter of time before she did something like this.

But this? I'm not sure what this was all about. Her enemies had surrendered. The war was over. The Iron Throne was hers for the taking. Yet she decided to criss-cross King's Landing burning everything and everyone in sight? Millions of dead, just because? Even with the rush, this could have been handled better. Imagine, if you will, that instead of burning the city, Daenerys goes straight for the jugular. She flies directly to the Red Keep, burning some enemy troops along the way.

Daenerys breaks bad at last as she takes the Iron Throne.

Credit: HBO

When she gets there, she starts burning it down and Cersei flees. Daenerys looks for her, but can't find her and flies into a rage. She sees people fleeing the Keep into the city and swoops down, burning everyone who is running. Maybe this sparks off the stores of wildfire, which begin to consume the city, and as she continues to hunt for Cersei, burning everyone who flees the Keep, she burns deeper in to the city . . . we watch as she changes, not on the edge of victory, but because she can't find Cersei (who is dead in the cellars already).

Either this, or the battle is just going terribly for her armies. Cersei is winning, and to turn the tide, Dany begins burning the city, sewing chaos and confusion--but still as part of a military strategy. Either of these options would be bad, and certainly would show that she's willing to kill far too many civilians to be considered a good person any longer, but at least there would be reason beyond just "Hey, they surrendered so let's kill everyone now." As Paul points out in the link above, not even the Mad King just killed everyone for fun like this. He was desperate.

His ambition becomes her ambition, to go and rule a country she's never truly lived in. In this very trailer we hear her say that she deserves to rule the Seven Kingdoms. I say that's poppycock, the mad ravings of a cruel tyrant or a petulant child. "I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms," Dany says in the trailer. "And I will."

Nobody ever seems to ask whether she should.

Dany strikes me as the worst kind of villain, one who truly believes that what she does is right. She has a moral compass, true, and a kind side. But ultimately hers is a story of ambition and murder and meddling. She is bringing three dragons and a barbarian horde (or two, if you count the Iron Islanders) to ransack, rape and pillage, burn and loot and raid, a home she no longer belongs in.

The problem is that the shift from conquering hero to the most murderous villain in the entire series just happened too quickly without enough build-up and structure. It's as if Walter White got his cancer diagnosis and was the one who knocks by season 2. Sure, the groundwork for the whole "power corrupts" thing has been set up from long ago with plenty of foreshadowing, but as far as character arcs go this was still jarring, to say the least. Like so much in this episode, Dany's turn to full villain (never go full villain) didn't feel earned. It felt forced and rushed, despite all the ways it was foreshadowed.

P.S. When I wrote that back in 2017 it wasn't the first time I had talked about Dany as a villain-in-the-making, though back then I was often yelled at for saying so and called various things (sexist, etc.) Now all I have to say is...

How's them apples?

3. Cersei's death was fine, but Jaime's death was terrible and pointless.

Jaime and Cersei together again.

Credit: HBO

I don't mind that Cersei didn't really die the way the prophecy said she would. It was just a prophecy, after all. Sometimes they don't come true. And I suppose, in some ways, Tyrion really did kill her, or at least help kill her by helping Daenerys. That she died in the dark, in a heap of rubble, with nobody but Jaime to witness it, with no one to sing her song . . . well that's poetic justice enough for me. Cersei didn't deserve some noble death, and neither of her brothers deserved to have her death (and her baby's death) on their conscience (which is why I hoped someone else would do it).

But Jaime . . . oh Jaime, why? I don't mind that he died. Every man dies. It's just the way he went out, the utter annihilation of his character's many-seasons arc, it may be the most tragic turn this show has ever given us, and not tragic in a good way. What was the point of Jaime becoming a good man if all he was going to do is teleport back to King's Landing to die in the dark with his sister, who he had finally rid himself of at the end of last season? What was the point of him knight Brienne, or bedding Brienne, or even having known Brienne at all?

The only way this could have made sense is--in a less rushed season--if Jaime had simply joined Jon Snow and marched to King's Landing to help fight. Like Sorsha defying Bavmorda at the foot of Nockmaar, defiant despite his love for her, hoping to defeat her and maybe help save her life at the same time, perhaps urging Daenerys (with the help of Tyrion) to imprison her rather than execute her.

Then, as the battle unfolds, Jaime would see what everyone else was seeing, that Daenerys has no plans for mercy whatsoever, so he rushes to the Red Keep in order to save her and their unborn child. I wouldn't have minded that at all, but the awkward Brienne stuff in the previous episode, plus the teleportation, eh, it was just all bad. And Jaime going back because suddenly he loves her again was a terrible way to treat such a complicated character. He should have been a heroic figure in the end, only going to save Cersei when there was no other choice and Daenerys had already broken bad.

I did enjoy the scene with him and Tyrion, however. That hug brought all the feels. But it could have happened in a different situation as opposed to him being imprisoned by the Unsullied.

4. The show's treatment of dragons is all over the place.

Burn baby burn.

Credit: HBO

Okay, so let me get this straight. Last week, all it took to kill off one of Dany's dragons was Euron magically ambushing the Targaryen fleet and hitting a moving target from a moving ship from a thousand yards three times perfectly.

But this week one dragon can burn not only an entire fleet, but all the ballista on the walls of King's Landing, knock down the Red Keep and burn the entirety of King's Landing.

What?

This is just ridiculous. What was the point of killing off Rhaegal in the first place if Drogon was already this powerful? We thought it was to "level the playing field" but it wasn't leveled at all. Dany could have burned down King's Landing before going North to help with the Night King. Maybe she would have been more merciful had she gone and ended that fight first, before losing everyone she loved.

Also, wouldn't it have been better if both dragons were alive and Jon hopped on Rhaegal and tried to stop her? That could have been such an epic confrontation, above the burning city, Aegon Targaryen vs Daenerys Targaryen in a fiery clash of tooth and claw.

But no, instead Euron got to kill a dragon just because and then Drogon turned out to be so overpowered that I'm not even really sure why Dany needed the Unsullied or Dothraki or ships or anything, really, she could have just flown to King's Landing and taken it by herself long ago.

5. The whole thing was too neat and tidy.

Tyrion and Varys

Credit: HBO

For all its rushing and weird character decisions, this was also a ridiculously neat-and-tidy episode. For instance, we got Cleganebowl, because of course we did. Of course the Hound turned up just in the nick of time to fight his monstrous brother, the Zombie Mountain. And it was a cool fight, and ended with the Hound leaping into fire (his greatest fear) so that was pretty great, as was the hilarious death of Qyburn at the hands of his own creation.

But still, kind of predictable, no?

Then there's the death of Varys, who has navigated so many kings and queens and plots and always made it out alive. Like Littlefinger, his death was sudden and unearned. He's far too clever to go out like this. And he was right, in the end. More right than any of them could possibly imagine.

I liked how quickly the Golden Company was defeated because it was kind of funny, but again this felt like a lot of build-up for a very small payoff, like they just didn't have time to work with this massive mercenary army so they dispensed with them (and all those ballista) with no fanfare, in the blink of an eye. The shots of the fire consuming the ballista teams (who suddenly need to reload in this episode, just not last week) were pretty cool, though.

Bonus: Fans noticed that Jaime had his hand back in a photo of him hugging Cersei before they snuffed it. Much ado was made of this, but it turns out it was only in a promotional still and not in the episode itself. So that's good. Better than that damn Starbucks cup!

Verdict

Cleganebowl

Credit: HBO

In so many ways I still really loved this episode. What can I say?

I think I digest shows in two phases. First, the visceral. How it makes me feel. How the visuals and music and action work. How exciting or surprising it is. So as the city burned and the people ran and Jon tried to stop the killing and Cersei wept, and the Hound bled . . . I experienced all of that in a very immediate, heart-pounding sort of way. I let myself experience it this way, because as a critic I often spend too much time analyzing and nit-picking, so I just let all that fall to the side for a while.

Second, the temporal. The logic and coherency. Does the plotting make sense? Do the characters act in-character? Did the story flow naturally? Was the script well written? If the visceral bits are good enough, I can ignore some bad military tactics or a bumbling line of dialogue. If not, it's harder to forgive, which is likely why I disliked last week so much, especially the more I thought about it. This episode and 'The Long Night' both enthralled me. Both were tours de force of sight and sound. But both ultimately rushed the narrative and made grievous errors because of it. I can still love them for what they did right while critiquing them for what they got wrong.

As far as episodes of TV go, 'The Bells' was phenomenal in many ways. Miguel Sapochnik's directing was superb. The city felt alive. The anguish of battle, the panic, the running soldiers, it was all so real and so tangible. And the music, composed once again by Ramin Djawadi, was beautiful and sweeping and perfect.

Watching Jon as he realized his queen become monster was gripping. Watching Arya flee through the city, trying to help the peasants as she fled, left me on the edge of my seat. And I know not everyone did, but I loved the horse that she finds, somehow unscathed amidst all that death and ruin . . . . Then I looked and saw a pale horse. Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed close behind.

A pale horse.

Credit: HBO

There was so much to love about 'The Bells' but it only makes the final viewing that much more bittersweet. This episode this could have been, had HBO and Benioff and Weiss not rushed it all so badly, one of television's greatest--even more epic and grand than the Battle of Winterfell and a true cinematic achievement. Alas, it is now the lowest-reviewed episode in the show's entire eight-season run. I may not agree with the harshest critics, and there were worse episodes last season and last week, but as a fan of these stories and characters, the way it all played out in the end, especially with Daenerys and Jaime . . . well it hurts, man. It really hurts. I guess I'm glad I had lowered my expectations before this season even started.